1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel thermal dye transfer printing method and an intermediate media therefor which uses such printing means as thermal head, optical head such as laser, electrifying head etc. and the intermediate media used therefor. In particular, it is related to the printing method having advantageous characteristics in the printing on the ordinary paper by sublimation type thermal dye transfer printing and an intermediate media therefor.
2. Description of Prior Art
In the thermal dye transfer printing, an image transfer member having a coloring matter layer and an image receiving member are overlapped and the image is formed directly on the image receiving member by printing head. There is known such method that the image is once transferred on another medium by arbitrary method including thermal dye transfer printing and subsequently the image on the intermediate medium is transferred to the ultimate image receiving member, thus forming the image on the image receiving member (e.g. Japanese Kokai Publication No. 60-92897, No. 58-222877, U.S. Pat. 4,923,848).
Among various thermal dye transfer printing methods, the sublimation type thermal dye transfer printing provides the picture quality close to that of the photograph, but in order to obtain such preferred picture quality and printing density, a special sheet on which a dye-receiving layer is formed is required. When printing is made directly on the ordinary printing paper such as ordinary paper, such preferred picture quality and printing density can not be obtained, since the surface of ordinary printing paper is rough and lacks the dye-receiving layer. In the case when the method wherein image is formed first on another intermediate medium and then such image is transferred to the ultimate image receiving member (e.g. ordinary paper) to form an image on the image receiving member is applied to the sublimation type thermal dye transfer printing, many problems occur. That is, when image is formed on the ordinary paper using an intermediate medium, the dye-receiving layer on the intermediate medium is also transferred to the ordinary paper and therefore the luster of the surface of ordinary paper becomes stronger and its appearance and touch become similar to those of coating a dye-receiving layer on the ordinary paper and the quality of image as the one on the ordinary paper deteriorates (the luster is too high for the image on the ordinary paper).